Cast of characters

Central Park, Sunday at 1:30 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, April 18, 2016. It was a fair and sunny weekend in New York, getting warmer by the day — it reached 70 by midafternoon yesterday. Sunday was a good day for a walk with the dog in the park — Carl Schurz by the East River. Me and Tobey, down by the riverside.

The river traffic seems quieter these past few weeks. I’m used to seeing tugs pulling and driving large oil tankers to and from down river, out to the Sound.

The warmer temperatures are delivering bigger buds on the trees and larger blossoms on those that are already out. Everything is still in the pointillist mode, adding the luster of the Impressionist’s eye. Yesterday it brought out the sunbathers, and the riverside spectators, readers, friends, family, dogs, infants.

Looking north from Gracie Square on the Promenade in Carl Schurz Park.

Looking south toward Gracie Square, Sunday at noontime.

The garden island soon to be in full bloom.

The forsythia maturing.

Cherry trees and early in the season Sun worshippers plus picnickers preparing.

More flowering trees.

Mid-afternoon Sunday, with the line waiting to order from the ice cream man on the corner of East End Avenue and Gracie Square.

Friday night I had dinner with old friends at Sette Mezzo. You could call it the Over Thirty Club for I’ve known everyone at the table for more than three decades. When this group gets together the conversation covers the world we’ve been living in and its cast of characters.

Marianne Harrison, Philip Carlson, Steve Harrison, and Pax Quigley.

Pax is the newcomer in the group. She and I met over the phone — introduced by a mutual friend, thirty-five years ago in Los Angeles. She was working in public relations at Playboy and I was new in town in the early stages of making a career as a writer. Our conversation took place one weekday afternoon. I was at my desk in my house; she was at her desk in the office down on Sunset. I don’t recall why she called me, but we talked for more than an hour about god-knows-what — probably politics and/or the movie/entertainment business — and have been good friends ever since. We’ve continued having those occasional long phone conversations (and sometimes dinner conversations) ever since. About five or six years ago, Pax moved to New York to be near her grandchildren. She loves living in New York.

Back in the 1980s, Pax wrote a best-selling book "Armed and Female" about teaching women how to use a gun safely.

Marianne Harrison and her husband Steve own a bed-and-breakfast, the Rhett House Inn located in a large and stately 19th century mansion near the water in Beaufort, South Carolina. In the antebellum days when it was owned by the Rhetts, a prominent Southern family, Beaufort was known as the “Newport of the South.”

Marianne and Steve on the on the wraparound porch of the Rhett House Inn.

Native New Yorkers, Marianne and Steve still keep an apartment here in the city. Ironically they also see many people from New York and Hollywood at their very popular bed and breakfast. My wife at the time and I met the Harrisons in 1970, forty-six years ago, and we have been close friends ever since despite the lapses of time and the frequent distances between us.

Philip Carlson and I met when we were both cast in an off-Off-Broadway play (in Brooklyn Heights) “Christopher Columbus” in 1966, and we too have been close friends ever since despite the long periods of distance between us. Philip had a good career as a talent agent, having nurtured the careers of several very well known actors — including stars.

Philip left that end of the business several years ago and now hosts a seminar/lecture for actors and aspiring actors on “how to get a job” as an actor. He’s put the knowledge he acquired after years of experience nurturing and promoting careers in a book called “Breaking and Entering; How to Get a Job as an Actor” that will be published in September. What impressed me about Phil’s book was that it is actually a serious How-To book for any person starting out in pursuit of a particular career, be it in theatre, film, or other professional areas of life.

Philip Carlson in 1965 as drawn by Bob Schulenberg.

Catching up. Last Wednesday night at Cipriani 42nd Street, the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House hosted their annual gala “A Century of Design” honoring Audrey Gruss for her Outstanding Leadership and Support to benefit the Neighborhood House. The Gala Dinner Chair was Diana Quasha. The evening’s Friends were Audrey and Martin Gruss, and Kristen and Michael Swenson. Benefactors were Ingrid and Thomas Edelman, Thompson Dean, Arthur Loeb, the Marc Haas Foundation, Elizabeth Munson and Robert von Stade, Marianne and Juan Sabater, Sydney and Stan Shuman and Diana Quasha. Sponsors were Kamie and Richard Lightburn, Kathy and Orthon Prounis, Margo and Rand Takian.